


hapis island

by encanta



Category: Ghostbusters (2016), Rust (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Angst, F/F, Minor Character Death, Minor Violence, Slow Build, Wilderness Survival, no ghosts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-06
Updated: 2016-11-10
Packaged: 2018-08-29 10:01:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8485060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/encanta/pseuds/encanta
Summary: erin gilbert awakens on a beach, naked and alone, with no memory of a previous life. faced with a gnawing hunger and a need for answers, she sets out with only a single goal: to survive.





	1. prologue: first blood

**Author's Note:**

> this fic takes place in the rust universe and liberally uses gameplay mechanics as plot devices, but you don't need to have played the game in order to understand or enjoy this story. 
> 
> s/o to my friend alex for the beta!

“God…” 

Erin Gilbert lifted her heavy head from where she was laying prone on a sandy beach and blinked once, twice, willing her vision to stop rocking like the waves rolling in from the ocean before her. They lapped gently at the shore, stopping just short of where she’d awakened, but given that the sand was damp under her the tide must have just started moving back out. 

How long had she been here? And where, exactly, was ‘here?’ It was a couple more minutes before Erin could find the strength to sit up, and when she finally did, legs crossed under her and her body curled in on itself, she paused to take stock of the minimal information she currently had at her disposal.

First things first; she was devoid of any clothing whatsoever. 

Erin wouldn’t necessarily call herself a prude, but never had she ever found herself in a situation like the one she was in right now … namely, out somewhere in the wilderness in her birthday suit. It was incredibly jarring, and definitely topped the list of Concerning Things she was rapidly forming in her head. 

The second thing on the list was that she felt like absolute garbage. Her body ached, and even though she knew it was warm, given how oppressive the sun felt beating down on the back of her neck, she felt just this side of feverish. She was also hungry, and it was hard to ignore the angry, nauseous feeling tugging at the pit of her stomach. 

All she wanted was to lie back down and curl into herself on the sand, but that clearly wasn’t an option. What she _needed_ to do was find clothing and food, or maybe food and clothing … she wasn’t sure of the order, but the pain in her stomach paired with the nagging feeling in the back of her mind - some kind of low grade, delirium based anxiety, she figured - had her staggering off the beach, and into the grassy hill that rose up behind it. Her steps were ginger at first as she found her footing, but as she became more confident that she wasn’t going to tear the smooth soles of her feet open on errant rocks she began moving faster over the hill. With every step she took her body felt heavier, and Erin was panting by the time she got over the hill, which rolled down into a covered patch of woods. 

‘ _Food_ ,’ her stomach seemed to demand as she ran closer and closer to the trees, the small grove teeming with the promise of something edible. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do if it disappointed, but Erin couldn’t afford to think negatively at this point. 

The grass under her feet thinned out the closer she got to the woods and she slowed down once she got to the edge as the plains gave way to rockier footing. The trees provided cover from the sun and Erin let out a relieved breath as the cool shade kissed the tops of her bare shoulders. She was feeling good  
about this patch of woods, and as she rounded a fallen long, her instincts didn’t disappoint her. There in the dirt sprouted a couple red mushrooms, and she bent to pick them, before hungrily devouring them without pausing to consider whether or not they were safe to consume. 

To be honest, they could have been glowing and spotted and she still probably would have eaten them at this point; in any case, they’d seemed to have staved off the desperate hunger a little bit, and now Erin could think a little more clearly. 

Finding some sort of clothing still topped the list of concerns, and food was still a close second, but everything else she’d been holding at bay was beginning to creep in now that she’d finally gotten some sustenance. Namely … where the hell was she? From what she could see, the ocean reached on outwards into what looked like forever, but that didn’t give her much information. The gears in her mind began to spin wildly, tossing out questions as she crept through the woods, only half paying attention to her surroundings. Was she alone? Was this Earth? Why was she here? How did she get here? One question only seemed to spawn three more, a figurative Hydra of a puzzle, and Erin had to pause under the trees to drive her fingers into her temples in something that was frustration or maybe terror. 

All she really knew was that she didn’t have the tools needed to answer those questions right now. In fact … she didn’t have anything at all, figuratively _or_ literally. Try as she might, Erin had no solid recollection of any past life or memories, nor did her mind encounter any gaping void, like something had been cut away. She knew her name, she knew she was a human being, and she seemed to understand the way the natural world worked, but that skeleton was all she had. 

She could, for instance, summon the idea that having a favorite food was a Thing, but she knew that she couldn’t definitively name her own favorite food if it would save her life. That information simply did not exist within her brain, and that realization sent the first legitimate waves of panic up through Erin’s chest. What was she going to do? How could she get back to where she’d come from if she didn’t even know where she’d come from? Total amnesia - because that’s what whatever this was, right? Amnesia? - might have been preferable to this ambiguous half-life. 

The weight of it all threatened to overwhelm Erin, and she sat down heavily on a rounded stone, the rough, scratchy surface cool against the backs of her thighs. What next? The will to survive, that innate, biological imperative, was driving her forward, to think this through. She couldn’t be the only living thing in this place, could she? Logic didn’t seem to have a place in all this, otherwise she probably wouldn’t be in this position, but … _logically_ , why would she be the only person or creature here? So far she hadn’t seen any real signs of life, but she had to cling to the idea that she wasn’t alone or else she’d go insane, which would be the icing on top of the whole starving-to-death cake.

Speaking of which … her stomach was starting to growl again, and Erin took that as a sign to get off her ass and find something else to eat. She slipped down off the rock and took off with purpose, purpose that was quickly derailed when she stubbed her toes against a hefty looking rock she hadn’t seen before then. 

“Auugh!” she cried out, the pain undulating up her leg a minute before beginning to recede. She looked down at the offending rock, a scowl across her features, and then leaned down to pick it up out of curiosity. It was a decent size, hefty, but not so heavy that she couldn’t comfortably hang onto it, and Erin decided to do just that. If it was good enough to bruise all of the toes on her right foot, then it had to be good for other things. 

She limped through the forest with the rock in hand, stopping occasionally to pick and eat mushrooms she saw along the way. She was mid-bend when she heard a familiar, albeit out of place sound, and she snapped up so quickly she nearly threw her back out. 

A chicken, a few meters away, speckled brown, making soft clucking noises and pecking at the ground as if it belonged there and not on a farm somewhere. Erin wasn’t about to internally debate the geo-location of a certain animal species, however, because 1) she was glad to discover that she wasn’t actually the only creature alive in this place and 2) she was still hungry, and while both of those concerns held weight, the importance of the latter won out quickly. 

She didn’t take but half a minute to decide that she’d rather have a meal than company, and she stalked over to the chicken with as much stealth as she could muster and brought the rock down on its body with a sickening thump. It gave a surprised squawk but was still very clearly alive, and Erin hit it again and again before she could lose her nerve. 

When she pulled the rock away, the chicken lay limp and bloody before her and guilt crushed her lungs closed. Even though she couldn’t remember anything, she seemed fairly sure about the fact that she’d never had to kill her own meal before, and it didn’t feel great.

Her stomach rumbled, and the guilt receded a little. She used the rock to awkwardly chop at the chicken, freeing pieces of meat from the corpse as she made a mental note that she needed a more universal tool if she was going to be hacking up anything else. 

Next on the docket was a fire, which was good because Erin was pretty sure the sun was starting to set. She couldn’t tell how much time had passed between waking up and where she was now, but she’d gotten a bit more comfortable in her nudity, if only because she hadn’t actually seen another human being. 

She set about making a rudimentary fire-pit with some smaller stones and fallen sticks. It took some patience to get the fire started, but it wasn’t as hard as she would have assumed, and she sat back on her haunches as the chicken began to cook. The smell wafted up and Erin’s mouth watered; it was all she could do not to snatch the chicken straight out of the fire with her bare hands. 

She distracted herself while the chicken cooked by creating a shoddy hand-axe out of some more fallen stone and wood. She swung it experimentally and when the axe head didn’t immediately separate from the handle a victorious thrill shot through her. She was making progress … toward what, though, she wasn’t really sure. 

She was just about to fish the chicken breast from the fire with a stick when she heard a loud snap not far off. 

“Hello?” she called out and was rewarded with what were definitely at least two sets of footsteps. Relief flooded through Erin and she leapt up beside the fire, waving her hands, momentarily forgetting that she was naked and, at this point, dirty.

“Over here!” she cried, excitement hanging off her words, and the footsteps got louder, more twigs snapping underfoot. It was darker now, harder to see, but Erin could make out two figures getting closer and closer, and only when they came into full view did she realize her mistakes.

“What do we have here?” came an amused, slightly muffled female voice from behind a menacing looking deer-skull headdress. In her hands was a rusty machete, and she ran the tip of a fingernail across the edge of the blade as her partner strode up to Erin, unceremoniously knocking her onto her back. He put a boot on her chest and cocked his bow, the arrow aimed between her eyes. 

“The hard way’s the only way you nakeds’ll learn,” he said, and Erin screwed her eyes shut as fear flooded her every vein. She’d realized too late that the fire, so warm and bright and welcoming, had served to draw these two to her like moths to a flame and cursed her own naiveté. 

“Please!” Erin tried, her voice high and strained. The man’s words were all but lost on her - she had no idea what message he was trying to relay, or why his reaction to seeing someone obviously defenseless and in need was to threaten to kill her. “I don’t know where I am! Please, don’t kill me!” 

She realized, somewhat deliriously, that he was wearing a bucket over his head like some sort of make-shift armor. The bucket had a hole cut away in the front but his face was mostly obscured by a mesh grille, and Erin wanted to tell him how stupid he looked wearing it, but now definitely wasn’t the time. She could just make out his mouth curving into a small smile, like her words had managed to amuse him. 

“Like I said. It’s the only way you’ll-”

“Slimer!” the woman shouted from behind them, and Erin dropped her head back against the ground, where she had a clear, albeit upside down visual of three figures sneaking quietly out of the trees. The fire must have drawn their attention as well - as if this couldn’t get any worse.

“Damn, man! How come every time we find you you’re always picking on nakeds?” one of the figures - a woman - demanded. It was hard to get her eyes to focus from upside down, but this group looked just as rag-tag as the other two; their clothing was dirty and sun-bleached, their armor make-shift and rusted. “Guess we didn’t get the message across last time.” 

She had a shotgun in her hands, and Erin was relieved to note that it wasn’t pointed at her. Instead, she had it trained on the man, his bow still cocked right in her face. 

“Naked’s not always a naked,” he replied gruffly, his eyes flitting from Erin to the woman, and then to the other members of her group. “Nakeds ain’t always new spawns. You know the saying … ‘fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice…’”

He looked back at Erin, fixing her with a glare, and in a quick action pulled the bow-string taut. Fear lanced through her and Erin threw up an arm, knocking the bow askew just as he let the arrow fly. The shotgun exploded over her head as the arrow pierced her above her shoulder, the pain spreading through her like fire flicking its way down a fuse. Her mouth opened in a scream, fear and pain tangling together, as the man collapsed heavy and bleeding on top of her. She heard the man's partner screeching over her head and the dying campfire light glinted off the blade of the machete as she swung it upwards it in vain; she took a quick arrow through the stomach and dropped to the ground just short of Erin, shrieking and kicking in pain. 

“Nice shot, Patty!” a different voice cheered. “Help me move this big lug.” Erin’s vision was going darker by the minute, but she could see the three figures encircling her. A face drew near - it was a woman with brown hair and glasses. Her face was kind as she worked with Shotgun Woman - Patty - to move the man off of her. 

“We gotta get out of here, like, now,” Patty said, looking around hurriedly. “No telling who’s comin’ now that they heard that gun go off. You got the med-kit, Holtzy?” 

The third and final woman came more clearly into view. “Mmm, yeah,” she said, nonchalant, as if Erin weren’t bleeding out right in front of her. She set a green case down heavily next to her head and started rummaging through it.

“Today, Holtzmann!” the brown-haired woman said, earning her a laugh. Holtzmann seemed to find what she was looking for and peered down into Erin’s foggy eyes for just a second. She had a shock of blonde hair stuck up like a crooked halo around her head and she offered Erin a toothy grin.

“Doctor Jillian Holtzmann,” she introduced, jutting a hand out at her. One of the others slapped it away in admonishment, but her consciousness was fading so rapidly that she couldn’t make out who it was. 

“Wait! Don’t go into the light!” Holtzmann said, and she seemed to find her sense of urgency then, slipping her hand under Erin’s head and flicking the cap off of a strange looking canister with the other. Erin realized, belatedly, that it was a syringe of some sort, but she barely registered the prick of the needle or the ensuing relief the injection brought. She wasn’t headed toward any sort of light, but a most welcome blackness, and as she let her body slump against the ground she was just barely aware of being lifted by two strong pairs of arms. 

“Aww, man,” she heard Holtzmann say, before everything went dark, “The chicken’s burnt.”


	2. second blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> erin survives her first night on the island and wakes up with more questions than answers. holtzmann doesn't really help.

Waking up in a warm, albeit threadbare sleeping bag should have been preferable to waking up wet on a beach, but the pain that accompanied the former had Erin longing for the latter. She lay there for awhile, eyes closed, like if she stayed still for long enough the pain might go away. That wishful thinking didn’t work very well, though, and she eventually opened her eyes, only to jerk painfully in surprise because the blonde-haired woman from earlier - Holtzmann, she recalled - was peering at her curiously from where she was leaned up against the wall in the corner, all her weight shifted casually to one leg. The sudden move did nothing for what she could only assume was a tender, gaping hole in her shoulder, and Erin let out a groan rife with pain before slumping back in the sleeping bag.

“Why are you watching me sleep?” she asked, and she probably should have aimed for something a little more grateful, given that this woman was one of her three saviors, but Erin didn’t take kindly to people watching her sleep - or, she assumed she didn’t take kindly to people watching her sleep. This was officially the only experience she had with it to date, apparently.

“Making sure you don’t die,” Holtzmann supplied easily, and Erin was taken aback once again by how nonchalant she sounded about the whole thing. Still, that was kind of touching… “Medkits aren’t that easy to come by, you know.” … Scratch that.

“‘Waste not, want not,’ as they say. You know, I’m not entirely sure who ‘they’ are…”

Erin got the distinct feeling that Holtzmann would be content babbling on to herself without much input, and she planned to let her do just that, her eyes fluttering shut as a wave of errant nausea crashed over her. She was pretty sure she’d never been in this much pain before, as much as she was sure she’d never been shot point-blank with an arrow before.

“What’s your name?” The question interrupted her thoughts and Erin opened her eyes again to seek Holtzmann out.

“Erin.” It was a small consolation, that she knew her name. Even if it was something wild and science fiction-ish, a pre-loaded memory or the like, she was still grateful that she wasn’t a completely blank slate. Erin Gilbert, or the idea of her, was an anchor, something to cling to in this sea of uncertainty.

“A pleasure to make your acquaintance,” Holtz said, and the grin was back. “So sorry it had to be like this, but it’ll be a great story for our grandchildren.” She motioned toward Erin’s shoulder.

“How did you get it out, by the way?” Erin asked dumbly, ignoring the comment and groping around with her right hand, her fingertips skating over the heavy, once-white bandage plastered over the wound. She could only assume that Holtzmann had been the one championing the removal. She had, after all, introduced herself as a doctor, which only led to a slew of more questions. They were building so quickly that Erin wasn’t sure they’d all ever be answered.

“You don’t wanna know,” Holtzmann assured her, offering a cheerful smile as she came closer to examine the bandage, before lifting a hand to the side of her mouth, her voice dropping to a conspiratory whisper. “There was a lot of digging around for the arrowhead with dull instruments.”

She’d been right - that was a mental picture Erin didn’t need, and she winced in sympathy for her own pain, even though she’d been blessedly knocked out for the good parts.

Holtzmann reached a hand into a pocket that seemed deeper than physically possible, and after a couple moments of rummaging came up victorious with what she was looking for; a bloodied stone arrowhead, ostensibly the one that had previously taken up residence in her shoulder. She cocked her arm back and threw it underhanded at Erin, where it landed on her sternum before she could even think to react. “I kept it for you. Figured you’d want it.”

“Why would I-” Erin started to ask, but the woman had already turned on a swift heel and ducked out of the room, the trappings of which she was finally starting to notice now that Holtzmann wasn’t sucking up all her attention. ‘Room’ was applied kind of loosely here, she thought; this was more of a small, windowless stone box. She wasn’t in any position to do so, but Erin figured if she stretched her arms and legs out as far as they’d go she’d probably be able to touch either wall. There was what looked like a tiny stone furnace in one corner and it provided a welcome heat to the little room, but any comfort dissipated when Erin finally noticed the door Holtzmann had gone out of. It looked to be made of scrap metal, rusty yet sturdy, and there was a red light glowing from a coded lock just above the handle.

Panic swelled up in Erin; had she just locked her in here? Had she been locked in here the whole time? She didn’t think she was claustrophobic, per se, but the idea of being trapped in a tiny, windowless room by a group of strangers was enough to sound off alarm bells in her head, so even though she knew that moving was probably not in the best interests of pain management, she staggered to her feet, sending the arrowhead skittering, and started slamming her hands on the door.

“Hello!? Why is this door locked!? Let me out of here!” she yelped, panic cutting through her voice. The impact of her hands against the solid door wasn’t doing her shoulder any favors but she could hear footsteps from outside, indicating that it hadn’t been in vain. She staggered backwards just as the lock gave a high-pitched beep and the door swung open, revealing Holtzmann and an unamused looking Patty.

“The door is locked,” Patty started, sounding a bit impatient, “So nobody else gets in. Or did you forget about what happened last night? You do not want what is out there getting in here. Trust me.”

Erin was smart enough to recognize a rhetorical question when she heard one, and she bit her lip as she sat down heavily on the sleeping bag. She hardly noticed Holtzmann flitting into her personal space until the other woman was tugging the strap of the sallow wife-beater she was wearing down over her shoulder.

“Hey!” Erin shoved at her with her good hand, but that sudden movement did no favors for her. Holtzmann, completely non-plussed as if she’d been batted out of people’s personal space dozens of times before, just started working carefully to free the saturated bandage as Patty watched on. Erin turned her attention, and the slew of questions threatening to topple her sanity, to her.

“Why did those people try to kill me?” she asked, working hard to keep herself from sounding pitiful. “What is this place?” Those seemed like the most pressing questions right now, and perhaps their answers would do their part at taking her mind off of the pain in her shoulder. She could see new, wet blood and a blurry outline of the open wound from her peripheral vision and she did her best to look straight ahead instead of down, her eyes darting from Holtzman’s wild head of hair to Patty’s unsmiling face.

The woman seemed to be contemplating her answer, and she was silent for a long minute before replying. Holtzmann helpfully interjected with her own comments.

“You’re a new spawn,” Patty started.

“You don’t know that!” supplied Holtzmann cheerfully as she dabbed at the wound and spread a new, clean bandage over it. Erin wondered how her fingers could feel

“Every new spawn starts out naked. That’s just the way it is. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that every naked is a new spawn. That’s where the danger lies.”

“Let your guard down and pop! You could take an arrow to the back of the head. You got lucky, you know? This-” Holtzmann tapped around Erin’s shoulder. “Is just a flesh wound.”

In that moment Erin wanted desperately to argue, because she hadn’t felt all that lucky on the receiving end of the arrow, but Patty was cutting Holtzmann a Look, and she figured she ought to keep quiet as well. Holtzmann’s fingers skated under her armpit as she secured the bandage tightly, causing Erin to jerk, and the other woman laughed softly as Patty continued.

“There’s a lot of people out here who just kill on sight if they don’t know who you are … there are some who try and kill on sight even if they do. It’s safer that way. You shoot first, you don’t die. But we ain’t a ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ group. We still got our morality.” There was a hint of anger in Patty’s words that Erin didn’t quite understand, and she looked to Holtzmann for some sort of clarification. The blonde was avoiding her eyes, opting instead to focus on the finishing touches of the bandage. When she was satisfied that it would stay in put, Holtzmann tugged Erin’s shirt back into place and stood, moving over to peer down into the furnace.

  
“Needs more wood,” she commented. “I’ll get some.”

The heavy door slammed shut behind her and Erin turned her attention back to Patty, her mind working overtime with all this new information, which still didn’t clarify any of the bigger pictures; it was as if Patty had started filling in tiny pieces of the center of the puzzle, without having bothered to put the four corners in place.

“Are you going to let me out of here?” she wondered, trying not to sound forlorn. They’d done a lot for her by bringing her back to their home, but the tiny room and the no-nonsense lock were both starting to feel oppressive. Patty’s brow softened, and for a moment Erin thought she could see a bit behind the curtain.

“You aren’t really in any position to go anywhere, but when you’re healed up - Holtzy has a couple more syringes in the making - you can decide whether you want to stay or not,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. Erin didn’t think she meant for it to be as intimidating as it seemed.

“I meant, uh, out of this room. It feels like it’s closing in on me.”

“Oh. Right. I mean, yeah, if you feel up to it you can look around. Come on.” She held a hand out for Erin who took it gingerly, pushing herself to her feet. She was in a pair of (unsurprisingly) stained shorts that came down past her knees; the top and bottom together created a haphazard, unkempt look that she felt really fit the past twenty-four or some hours of her life. Patty keyed in the door code and she followed her out into a long stone hallway. There was another door at the end of the hallway, which Erin found out led into a main chamber. There were two giant furnaces planted in the middle, black smoke billowing from their tops, sparks spitting and cracking from their depths. There was a blond-haired man shovelling something out of one, and Patty waved him over.

“Hi,” he said perkily, sticking a hand out at Erin, who shook it briefly with her good arm. “I’m Kevin. Are you new here?”

“Kevin’s our slave,” Patty said before she could answer, and Erin nearly choked on her own saliva.

“Your what?!” Lack of memory or not, that word didn’t carry any positive connotation. Was she going to be a slave here, too?

“He slaves for us, which mostly involves hunting and gathering and bringing it all back in exchange for our protection and a place to stay. He’s been here for awhile now.”

Patty didn’t seem at all perturbed by the concept, but it left an uncomfortable feeling in Erin’s stomach, even though Kevin seemed perfectly content. He was dumping what looked like little metal shards into a large wooden box, whistling cheerfully as he did so. Heat from the furnace was making him sweat and was in turn making his shirt stick to his chest, and Erin had to force herself not to stare.

He seemed to sense the attention, anyway, and looked up. “Not to worry. These guys are nice! They give me cool weapons to fight things with.”

It wasn’t the most reassuring thing he could have said, and if Patty noticed Erin’s discomfort, she didn’t comment on it. Instead she motioned for her to follow as she started moving again.

“Wasn’t there someone else?” Erin realized, as they went through a door that led to yet another long corridor. She was beginning to get the distinct feeling that their home - if that was even the right word for it, as it hardly seemed like a house - was a purposeful labyrinth, and the realization formed a knot of worry in her stomach. Was this her life now? Constant watchfulness? Holtzmann and Kevin seemed cheerful enough, like the weight of this world hadn’t quite settled on their shoulders yet, but when she looked into Patty’s face she could see the kind of inured resolution that only came from hardship, and while Erin didn’t know whatever past life she might have had from a hole in the ground, she’d put money on the fact that it hadn’t been like this.

She didn’t know if she could do it, but she swallowed her doubts. It didn’t seem like there was any room for them here.

“Abby’s out gathering components for Holtzmann. She should be back in a day or two.”

The stricken look Erin gave her didn’t seem to sit well. “She knows this island backwards and forwards. Knows where to hide, where it’s less populated. She’s been here the longest of all of us - she’ll be fine.”

“We’re on an island?” It wasn’t farfetched, given that Erin had woken up on a beach, but it was a good piece of knowledge to have. “Has anyone ever-”

“Tried getting off? What, you think we’re stupid? Born yesterday? Like we didn’t think of that?”

Open mouth, insert foot. Erin’s eyes widened comically as she shook her head, tripping over her explanation. “No! I was just - making conversation.”

The knowledge didn’t do much for her spirits, though. Trapped on an island with a bunch of murderers? What had she done to deserve this? What had any of them done to deserve this?

They came to another room (how big was this place? It was starting to make her head spin) that was lined with more tiny furnaces, identical to the ones in her room. There was a campfire crackling in the middle of the room.

“Come eat. You need to get your strength up. I know it’s hard to comprehend, but you should be healed up completely within the next day. Things just … work differently here,” Patty said, producing some meat from the fire, which she handed to Erin. The pain still had her stomach on edge, but her mouth began to water from the scent of the food, and it was only then that she realized just how hungry she was. She devoured the meat hungrily without pausing to confirm what it was.

Holtzmann appeared through the door, and her eyebrows shot up as she walked in on the tail end of Erin’s meal. “Ooh,” she started, struggling to keep the glee from her tone. “Baby’s first meal of horse flesh.”

If there’d been anything left in her mouth to spit out, Erin would have, but she’d eaten it all so fast that she didn’t have that luxury. Instead, the meat felt like a warm weight in her stomach, even as she turned a bit green.

“Holtzy!” Patty barked, but it was clear she was struggling to keep the amusement off her face. It’d already seeped into her eyes, and for a moment Erin was witness to the deep affection between the two. She sounded apologetic when she addressed Erin. “Beggars can’t be choosers. That goes for all of us, you know? Options are limited on the island.”

She shook her head at Holtzmann, a soft sort of chiding, and then motioned toward Erin. “There’s a new base going up over the river, and I’m gonna go see what’s up. Try not to get killed or anything.”

It was on that note that she left them alone, and Erin turned to Holtz, the questions threatening to burst from her. The first, most pressing one: “Am I your slave or something?”

She couldn’t quite keep her tone neutral, and the words landed somewhere in the area of ‘offended.’ Holtzmann just laughed, shaking her blonde-head as she examined the contents of the furnaces, occasionally reaching in with a piece of wood to fish smelted metals out.

“Nah. Why, do you want to be?” She wiggled her eyebrows. Erin frowned deeply, unamused. Still, it was a relieving enough answer.

“It’s just such a - it seems like a shitty concept. Why isn’t Kevin bothered?”

Holtz shrugged, then began dumping things from her pockets into a box in the room. Erin moved to peer over her shoulder curiously. “Kevin’s … simple. He’s never going to be one of us, but he’s useful and we don’t want him to die. I don’t know how to explain it in a way that’s going to be palatable to you.”

She glanced back at Erin, making meaningful eye contact. How strange that this bizarre woman seemed to understand her already. “Like, we’d never trust him with the codes to this place, but we’d come to his rescue if he were in trouble. It’s a necessary distinction. This place is different from where we came from.”

She clammed up, like she’d said too much, and then slipped the ever-present grin back into place just as Erin opened her mouth to bombard her with more questions. “Now, Erin. I need you to rest up. You should be good to go by tomorrow, and that’s when the real fun begins.”

“The ‘real fun?’” Erin asked skeptically.

“Oh yeah. We’re going back outside. Call it ‘Erin’s Revenge.’ No, wait. Don’t call it that. Those guys are dead, anyway. But we do need to get you back on the horse … ha ha … so to speak. I’m going to be real with you - if you’re going to stay with us, you need to be useful. Patty’s not going to tolerate dead weight, even if it’s cute dead weight.”

  
Erin had the decency to flush, her cheeks going a mottled red. She opted to address the dead weight part.

“What if I can’t do this? What if-”

Holtzmann put a single finger over her lips, literally silencing her doubts.

“Don’t worry. I’ve got faith in you. And my instincts are great.”

Erin could only hope she was right.

**Author's Note:**

> if this has made you want to play rust at all, HIT ME UP and we can form a girl-gang!


End file.
